Vancouver police on the scene of a homicide outside the Shaw Tower at 1067 W. Cordova St. in Vancouver, March 11, 2014. police say a 29-year-old man has died and a 28-year-old has been seriously injured in a targeted, gang-related shooting at 10:30 on Monday night.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Vancouver police on the scene of a homicide outside the Shaw Tower at 1067 W. Cordova St. in Vancouver, March 11, 2014. police say a 29-year-old man has died and a 28-year-old has been seriously injured in a targeted, gang-related shooting at 10:30 on Monday night.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Vancouver police on the scene of a homicide outside the Shaw Tower at 1067 W. Cordova St. in Vancouver, March 11, 2014. police say a 29-year-old man has died and a 28-year-old has been seriously injured in a targeted, gang-related shooting at 10:30 on Monday night.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Vancouver police on the scene of a homicide outside the Shaw Tower at 1067 W. Cordova St. in Vancouver, March 11, 2014. police say a 29-year-old man has died and a 28-year-old has been seriously injured in a targeted, gang-related shooting at 10:30 on Monday night.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Vancouver police on the scene of a homicide outside the Shaw Tower at 1067 W. Cordova St. in Vancouver, March 11, 2014. police say a 29-year-old man has died and a 28-year-old has been seriously injured in a targeted, gang-related shooting at 10:30 on Monday night.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Vancouver police on the scene of a homicide outside the Shaw Tower at 1067 W. Cordova St. in Vancouver, March 11, 2014. police say a 29-year-old man has died and a 28-year-old has been seriously injured in a targeted, gang-related shooting at 10:30 on Monday night.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Vancouver police on the scene of a homicide outside the Shaw Tower at 1067 W. Cordova St. in Vancouver, March 11, 2014. police say a 29-year-old man has died and a 28-year-old has been seriously injured in a targeted, gang-related shooting at 10:30 on Monday night.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Police investigate a double shooting that left two men with serious injuries outside the Shaw Tower in Coal Harbour Mon., March 11 around 10:30 p.m.Mike Hager
/ Vancouver Sun

Vancouver police on the scene of a homicide outside the Shaw Tower at 1067 W. Cordova St. in Vancouver, March 11, 2014. police say a 29-year-old man has died and a 28-year-old has been seriously injured in a targeted, gang-related shooting at 10:30 on Monday night.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Vancouver police believe that Tejinder (Tee) Malli's killers were lying in wait near the spot in Coal Harbour where the gangster was shot to death in a car Monday night.

Investigators want to hear from anyone who may have seen a suspicious vehicle near Cordova and Thurlow in the hours before the 10:30 p.m. murder.

"We think they were hunkered down in a car around there somewhere and we're hoping that somebody out there did see something," Sgt. Randy Fincham said Thursday. "They roll up on our victims, now sitting in the car parked on Cordova Street. More than one shooter fires off a number of rounds into the car. Then they get back into this car and they take off."

He said the killers may have been idling in an alleyway or behaving suspiciously for an hour or two before Malli and associate Saman Ghabcheloo, of North Vancouver, were shot.

Malli died in hospital; Ghabcheloo, 28, is expected to survive.

"I don't know how cooperative our remaining victim is," Fincham said.

The Vancouver Sun has learned that a third man named Fariborz Saffari, 28, was in the targeted vehicle, but fled the scene when his friends were shot.

Fincham said police are still reviewing surveillance seized from around the busy downtown location where the attack occurred.

"We do think there is a possibility there might be more footage out there that we need to obtain," he said.

Fincham said police have had great cooperation from witnesses in the area, but are now poring over statements to try to get a consistent description of possible suspects.

"We have a number of different suspect descriptions. We have got very good witnesses that have come forward. What happens in a situation like this is they hear the shots and then they look," he explained.

That means that the people they saw running away may have been either the shooters or people from the victims' car.

"It is pretty dark in that area. Under stress, people remember things in different ways," he said.

Fincham said the shooting is yet another case of targeting someone deeply immersed in Metro Vancouver's gang world. "If you avoid gang life, your chances of not being killed like this are very good," he said.

Malli, 29, had a long list of enemies.

The Sun has learned that he was very close to Saffari's elder brother Milad and was present outside a Coquitlam gym when the elder Saffari was shot to death in June 2010.

Malli was a suspect himself in more than one murder at the time of his death.

Transit police Const. Doug Spencer, who does anti-gang work with the Odd Squad, had known Malli for years.

"He is one of the original Red Scorpions way back," Spencer said. "He turned into an independent gangster-ripper."

According the B.C. land and personal property registries, Malli had no listed assets. He still lived at his family's Richmond home.

"He's been involved in gangs and criminal life for at least a decade, since his teens," said Sgt. Lindsey Houghton of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit. "He rose to a position where he was operating his own little crime group or cell. He had some modicum of respect from some."

But he had also received numerous warnings from police about rivals' plots to kill him. He had both friends and enemies in a number of different gangs.

Some of his friends, including Ghabcheloo and Saffari, play in-line hockey together on a team ironically called the Snipers.

Said Houghton: "This is yet another example of a gang member not making it to 30."

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